Time To Blow Up The Lakers?
Friday - May 18, 2011
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What to do if you’re Lakers’ owner Jerry Buss?
Do you follow the advice of Magic Johnson and “blow up” the team?
Part of Magic’s critique is hard to deny. The Lakers are slow and not very athletic. They were built to play Phil Jackson’s triangle offense, and now that he is gone the owner can move his team toward that full-court transition style he prefers.
Some of the pieces have to change. It won’t be Kobe - your star is owed $83 million over the next three years and he can fit better than the others into an uptempo game. But between Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom you need to make some changes.
At least one and maybe two of them can be used to get some speed and quickness.
And while you’re at it, you might want to address the point guard situation. If you want to get something that looks like Showtime, you may need to write off the next couple of years as far as competing for a championship goes, but that will be hard for the aging owner to do.
The Spurs and the Celtics also need to begin to address the future. Both teams have a nucleus of aging stars. And there are teams around them that are young and talented like Chicago, Oklahoma City and Memphis. We might well be looking at a major changing of the guard.
* The Rainbow Wahine softball team has found this season far more challenging than last year’s magical run. The introduction of new players, uncertain chemistry and different bats all contributed to early struggles. But as of late the offense has come around to join the very reliable pitching.
The last couple of weeks had been far more what coach Bob Coolen had hoped for all season. But after winning their opening game in the WAC tournament last week, they lost two one-run games and were eliminated. As of this writing, it appears their season is over. Goes to how how hard it is is be great year in and year out.
* It seems increasingly unlikely that we’ll ever see a Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather championship fight.
Last week’s fight - with Shane Mosley back-pedaling for most of the fight after getting floored in the third round, and losing a unanimous decision - point up a pressing problem for the Filipino hero: There may not be another fighter beside Mayweather who could make a competitive bout.
But Mayweather’s legal problems may remove any chance of the fight ever being made.
Can’t blame Pacquiao for taking the $20 million plus he gets for pounding on lesser fighters.
* For UH fans making long-range travel plans, the Warrior football team plays University of Washington in Seattle on Sept. 10. The next day the Yankees play the Mariners at Safeco Field. The team will then head to Las Vegas to play UNLV.
Then, on Nov. 12, UH plays Nevada in Reno. The following day, the 49ers host the New YorkY Giants at Monster Park.
A couple of nice side trips for the adventurous traveler.
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